The first time I talked to Bill Raney, the powerful president of the West Virginia Coal Association, he said, apropos of nothing, "Did you know that it takes more energy to charge up a Palm hand-held than it does to power a refrigerator for a month?" It turns out Raney's claim is a bit exaggerated; a Palm is roughly 1,500 times less power hungry than a refrigerator.
Suddenly a determined voice interrupted: "Mr. Eliot, apropos of tea, do you not consider Katherine Mansfield the most sensous of modern writers?" Everybody was grateful to the keen-witted young man who remembered that Katharine Mansfield had once written a story called "A Cup of Tea".
She's also playing push-me/pull-you with poor, bumbling Dan, who she wanted to marry, then didn't want to marry, then did, then didn't, then, apropos of something or other, did.
"Ooh," she'd say, apropos of not much, "doesn't it soon get to 10 to 10?" Or, "Ooh, aren't eggs useful?" Or, "Ooh, doesn't a black skirt cover a multitude of sins?" I used to grind my teeth, knowing I was supposed to reply, "Yes, the evening has gone quickly, you're quite right".
An old friend of Mr. Martin's, apropos of not much, did an awkward magic trick on the stage.
The four of them don't exactly bend over backwards to present themselves as A Serious Enterprise with their MySpace video, which shows them, apropos of frankly very little, doing a daft synchronised dance routine to the Thompson Twins' In the Name of Love.
Another question, apropos of kids of stars: do the most gifted parents begat the most exceptional kids?
Apropos of nothing, Max asked, "Do you think the bathroom is clean?" Jacob wondered if Max's question, his desire to get away, was apropos of some knowledge, or intuition, that his father hadn't touched his mother's breasts in months.
So it is of note when in the new "American Hustle" she declares, apropos of almost nothing, "I don't like change".
A discussion about the accuracy of the book ("How Do We Know That the Bible Is Historically Reliable?"), for example, includes this sentence, apropos of nothing: "Just as historians do not know everything about King David's reign many centuries ago and about the life of Jesus, we similarly do not know all of Dr. King's activities during his stay in the Birmingham jail".
